


Thanksgiving

by Niji_Hitomi_Iscariot



Category: One Piece
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Based on Reality, Custody Issues, Drabble, Established Relationship, Fluff, Holidays, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Stress, Suicidal Thoughts, Vent Writing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-25
Updated: 2018-01-19
Packaged: 2018-05-03 07:55:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,299
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5282882
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Niji_Hitomi_Iscariot/pseuds/Niji_Hitomi_Iscariot
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stress piles up at work, and Zoro buries himself in training. Especially as the holiday is coming up and his ex is out of touch for coordinating it. His best friend's incarceration doesn't help. And on top of that he's working opposite his lover. He's just about to the point of going to sleep for good, just to get some rest.</p><p>Good thing he's got a reason to stay awake.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Based entirely on my current situation. I am Zoro. He is me. And I swear if it wasn't for my girls, I'd have gone to sleep a LONG time ago. Love you so much, babe!

“You’re scaring me, Marimo.”

The words echoed through his mind as he pushed. The weight clanked metallically, a staccato off-rhythm to his heartbeat. His muscles screamed, begging him to stop, but nothing else made the world feel better right then.

Back to back shifts. Holidays. Balancing Chopper and everything else. It made his head spin. Nothing made sense. His bank account was too shallow. He’d even snapped at his boss before clocking out last night. They’d tiptoed around him for the last two hours of his shift. It both made him laugh, and set him off. Because if they could notice he wasn’t okay, then why couldn’t they see he was struggling with it.

A letter from Luffy sat unopened on the desk across the room from him. He couldn’t bring himself to read it. Just one more thing on top of everything else. He knew the contents mostly. They’d have messed with his meds again, nobody else was writing to him, and probably some drivel about making friends or getting into fights. The same thing in every letter almost, just tailored to which prison he was at this time. Hopefully this was the one where he’d finish out his sentence.

The only upside was that Luffy wasn’t listed on the registry yet, and with luck he would never be. Zoro reasoned he would have been listed if they were going to list him. He was sentenced already after all; processed through the state penitentiary and all that. So if he wasn’t on the list yet, Zoro hoped that meant he never would be.

Even if it was going to take twenty years to actually be certain.

Just one more thing on top of everything else; he pushed harder, shoving the barbell over his head with a grunt and a growled exhale. The weights clattered again, and Sanji’s words echoed back to him.

He could hear the cook in the kitchen, humming some Christmas-y song with a tuneless sort of distraction that meant he was researching something. Vaguely the scent of nutmeg and cinnamon filtered over sweat and oil. Zoro didn’t know exactly what it was, but it was certain to be delicious regardless. He just hoped that it would be still good if they had to postpone things another week.

Except they couldn’t. He was going to Loguetown next Friday. Shit.

Settling the weights over his head on their rack, Zoro growled louder. His stomach pulled and bunched, yelling at him for working so hard without a break, but he ignored it in favor of flopping down into his desk chair and thumbing his phone open.

Two presses of his thumb and the other end was ringing. Predictably she didn’t answer.

“Y’all know what to do when you hear it~” Her recorded message sang into his ear.

He grunted just before the beep. “Look, you need to call me back. If you aren’t doing the holiday thing day after tomorrow, you need to tell me. I ain’t playing this stupid phone tag bullshit like he’s some kind of toy to fight over. It’s my holiday, and I’ve been pretty fuckin’ flexible about it cuz you said you had her over. But if you two aren’t doing shit on the day, then I’m taking him.”

He hung up and glared into the darkened room, which only got darker when the screen of his phone went black. How long he glared at the frosty window across the way, he didn’t know, but he jumped a little when his phone vibrated.

Text message: “Fine. Take him.”

“That’s it?! Really!? Goddamn, sea witch!” He snarled at his phone. “I try to be fuckin’ considerate and think about your fuckin’—ARGH!”

Hands ran over his neck and shoulders, and blond hair slipped into his peripheral vision as the cook leaned down to wrap his arms around him. “So we’ll have Tony for dinner then. That’s a good thing, right?”

“Yeah.” Zoro grunted again.

“You need time off.”

“Yeah.”

“Call in sick.”

“I can’t.” He leaned back, his eyes closed and inhaling deeply the scent of apple pie and stuffing. “Rent’s due by the fifteenth. Gotta make it by this check, and I need at least another two hundred to make it.”

“I could…” Sanji began, but Zoro shook his head, dislodging him.

“No. You give us too much as it is. I just wanna see you.”

“But…”

“No. Besides, it wouldn’t get to where it needs to be in time.”

“If I transfer it, won’t you have it by the fifteenth?” The tilt of his head looked like a confused dog.

Zoro shook his head again. “I need it in my hand by the fifteenth. No. I need it in my hand _before_ the fifteenth, so I can get it to Iceburg _by_ the fifteenth.”

Sanji seemed put out. It took all of two breaths before Zoro was pulling him into his lap, burying his face against his stomach with a sigh.

“If you transfer it, I can take the extra two hundred out of my check, and then make it up through the transfer so I don’t have to worry about the timeframe on it. Okay?”

“Okay.” The cook beamed, running his fingers through his lover’s hair. “I gotta go…”

“Ngh. I know.”

“Hey, you’re strong, Zoro.”

“I have my boys to be strong for.” He smiled up at him.

“Yes you do. Now I really gotta go.”

“I won’t do anything stupid, I promise.”

“Good boy.” Sanji bent down and kissed him, then pulled away, already untying his apron on his way out the door.

“If I did anything stupid I wouldn’t get to be with you.” Zoro leaned back, tired but content.

The cook nodded, “Exactly. I love you, tiger.”

“I love you too, baby. Have a good shift.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heh. More stress, more vent writing. Wish I actually had a bike to just get away for a while, and no I didn't throw my phone in the river. No matter how much I want to.
> 
> Also, thank you guys for your warm wishes, I do appreciate it. Just not feeling very social at the moment thanks to all of the bullshit going on.

“Cook, keep me from doing something stupid.”

No words brought him running faster. They both knew Zoro’s history with that sort of thing. He had the scars to prove it, and too many knives to be safe when he felt like this. Sanji left work. He had to. His heart clenched almost tighter than his hand around his phone.

The text message had come in hours ago.

God only knew what Zoro had done since then.

No no. They were less than twenty-four hours out. What had happened this time?! They had been doing so good. Zoro had been set out to finish off their holiday cards today when he left. He’d been up. The stress from the night before, the issues, all of it was fine! What happened!

Sanji burst through the door of their apartment, and the deathly silence chilled him to his very core. His tongue glued itself to the roof of his mouth as his stomach twisted in knots. He’d been in the middle of the dinner rush. He couldn’t answer. It wasn’t his fault. Oh gods please.

Flipping lights on from room to room, the anxiety only mounted, he couldn’t take it. Where was Zoro!

Finally reaching their bedroom, he was slamming open the doors, panting heavily and nearly at his wits end.

No one.

“ZORO!!”

He fell to his knees, hands shaking with how hard he gripped his phone. No no no. C’mon, answer. Fuck it all Marimo, where are you! Please! Pick up pick up! No shit! Nami!

“Yeah?”

“Nami, have you heard from Zoro?” His voice was strained, barely contained.

She sounded bored. “He was here earlier to get Tony.”

“And?”

“And I told him no.”

“WHAT?!” He coughed, then reigned himself in, he wouldn’t yell at the ladies, no matter how worried he was. “Why?”

“Because, we set up before that Tony was going to spend the day with me and Vivi.”

“But last night you texted him!”

“Sanji, I was half asleep when I sent that, do you have any idea what time it was when he left that arrogant message on my phone? I didn’t even listen to half of it, and I _tried_ to call him earlier to explain but he didn’t answer.”

“Urgh…” Sanji dragged his hand over his face, feeling the tension headache crawling up the back of skull. “Do you have any idea where he went?”

“How should I know? He just stormed out. You know how he does.”

Barely able to hold onto his temper, and clenching his teeth, “Thank you, Nami dear. Happy Thanksgiving.”

Then he hung up without even waiting for her to answer. Throwing his phone on the bed, he flopped back on it, both hands over his face trying to remember if he’d seen Zoro’s bike next to the building. He didn’t think he had, but why would Zoro go out to get Tony on the bike?! It was thirty-fucking degrees out there, the kid would freeze.

“Where are you, Marimo…”

How long he laid there the cook didn’t know, hands over his face, and worry twisting his guts in knots, but the sound of keys on the hall table made him bolt out of the bedroom like he’d been electrocuted. He had to hold onto the doorframe to keep himself upright, panting and strung out as he was. He hadn’t even had the concentration to smoke since he got home.

“Oi, cook. Why’s every light in the place on?”

There he stood. Unharmed, whole, with his stupid motorcycle helmet under his arm and unzipping his stupid motorcycle jacket with his stupid fingers and looking stupidly handsome. OH Sanji just wanted to kick him, or kiss him, or kill him… he wasn’t sure which.

“Y-you…” He breathed, marching forward.

The green-haired man stepped back slightly, wary of the storm on his lover’s brow, “Me?”

“Where the shit have you been!” Sanji didn’t even raise his voice, which was even scarier. “I have been looking. For hours. Trying to wrack my brain. About where you could be. What you could have done. And what happened to your phone!? I tried to call you. I tried to text you. I even tried fucking Skype on the off chance you were out of the service area but you! You muscle-headed, lunk! If I had half my wits about me you’d be sleeping on the cou—MMF!”

Zoro silenced him with a solid kiss. “I’m okay.”

Sanji started to melt into him, then hardened and smacked him across the back of the head. “THAT DOESN’T CUT IT!”

“OI!” He used the helmet and his arms to block the next kick. “I just needed to ride for a while! I wasn’t thinking! I thought I’d be back before you! Oi! OI!! SANJI!”

The use of his real name made the cook stop. “Hmph. You leave me that message and then all you have to say is you had to ‘ride for a while’. Least you could’ve done was text me again!”

Great. He was pouting. Zoro sighed, rolling his eyes. “I couldn’t. I lost my phone in the river.” He held up a hand to forestall the blond’s continued tirade. “I wasn’t anywhere near the bridge! I was down on the bike path, where that bench and the clover grows in the summer.”

“So how exactly did you lose it?” Sanji raised his visible eyebrow.

Here Zoro blushed, looking off to the side, and coughed, rubbing the back of his neck with his free hand, “I… might have thrown it when the sea-witch tried to call me back…”

“For the love of… Sometimes I swear if I’d married a caveman he’d have better sense than you. Now how is Tony supposed to call you?”

“I know… that’s why I was late. I was getting a new one.” He squirmed a little under his lover’s glare, “Annnnd the streets might’ve… maybe… moved around a bit on my way back.” The sultry look that came over his face did nothing to melt the cook’s icy temper, “I can’t help it you’re my north star.”

“Don’t think this means you get to fuck me tonight.” But Sanji pulled on the collar of his jacket to kiss him again, and he leaned his forehead against the other’s. “Don’t scare me like that, Marimo. You know what that means to me.”

“I know. Sorry.”

“Bastard.”

“Love you too.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Stress = vent writing. Life is better, but mental illness doesn't care. Thanks again for all the well-wishes, and I'm sorry I disappeared for a while. Meatspace shit wound up a little more complicated than I had anticipated.

Sometimes the world was heavier than the weight of the boxes he lifted every day. Sometimes it was heavier than knowing that Chopper would never truly know what it was like to share a home with him. Sometimes that made it worse.

He came home from a long shift, at his wits’ end. This close to walking out and never going back. At earlier points in his life, he remembered having done just that. When the job got too heavy to lift, he dumped it and went for a new one. He liked to claim that things had changed when Tony was a thing, but that was a lie. And he knew it.

But tonight.

Tonight the endless dark looked more welcoming than it had in months. To just never have to deal with that ever again. To slip into dreams that still continued to haunt him, the kind that clung to his waking hours like slime, in strands and tendrils. Buried under his skin in a way that scrubbing and water couldn’t wash out. Thinking about it made his hands start to shake, tears refusing to come like a persistent nausea.

He’d ranted himself hoarse, exhausted, but equally as afraid of sleep as craving it. Sleep was where he could escape, and yet not at the same time.

No, that was a lie too. It wasn’t the dreams he feared.

It was the waking again.

Shaking and cold in a way that no one understood. The world too real and not at the same time. Laying under the covers, praying that the tingling raw sensations of his skin against the very air of their room would go away.

The itching of his newest piercing drew his attention out of his thoughts.

Looking up, he saw Sanji bustling about the kitchen, as usual. He was winding down for the night though, the floor mopped and the dishes finished. Laundry done and animals taken care of. The blond chef was sure to spend a few minutes surfing the net. If he caught the inspiration, he’d dabble in planning a menu for the next weekend, but just as likely after a long day, he would just skim his social media, escape the weight of the world by skipping over the posts about politics.

Zoro envied him that.

Oh sure there were days when Sanji could barely get out of bed. Days when he slept ten hours at a time. But never when it really mattered.

They were good that way. ‘Coordinated baggage’ the cook said. It was soothing to the jagged edges of Zoro’s mind. The intrusive voices weren’t as loud when he considered the man he thought of as his husband. His other half. The matching pieces to his baggage.

He nearly caught a sob in his throat at that. Swallowing hard, and sighing.

Emotional nausea was nearly as hard to wait for as the physical version. Not that he felt physically nauseous very often, but given his iron-clad stomach, he was more likely to suffer through hours of vague nausea rather than actually vomit.

At one point, early in their relationship, Sanji had argued he was emotionally stunted.

Zoro figured he was probably half right. Something definitely held him up from displaying how he felt these days. He barely remembered the last time he actually cried, but if the emotional version was as cleansing as the physical, he figured if he could cry more often, maybe the world wouldn’t feel like this.

Inside his own head, he screamed at himself to get up off the couch, to go to Sanji, to seek out the affection that would beat back the raging voices that made the sound of permanent silence so, so, enticing.

But he was just so, so heavy.

His right eye, the good one, welled up with tears that wouldn’t fall, while he stared at his beloved. The wall between him and the abyss. The person he went to work each day for. The one he refused to see lost. He couldn’t help it.

The light in his tunnel, like a literal sun, sitting there unaware of the raging darkness in his mind. All at once he couldn’t tell him, while at the same time he knew that Sanji knew too well. Personal loss and life itself weighed just as heavily on the cook as it did on Zoro sometimes.

He knew that.

And yet.

But never again would he scare him like that. That cold rainy night had been too close for either of them.

No matter how comforting the endless night sounded, even the vastness of space wasn’t empty.

Sighing deeply again, Zoro finally managed to heave his body off of the couch. Each step felt like trodding through quicksand, sucking at his feet with the vacuum of air underneath him. His voice wouldn’t work, rough and thick with emotional nausea. But when he reached the table, Sanji looked up.

“Hey, Ro.” His voice was balm against the scrape of the world on his skin.

Muted by the day, Zoro looked down at him. Sanji was drinking something, dark brown and warm. With what little Sign he’d picked up from friends, Zoro questioned it. ‘C? T?’

Of course, Sanji barely knew the alphabet, and didn’t understand the letters themselves, but he did catch on to what Zoro was saying. “Coffee. Left over from this morning. Want some?”

Zoro shook his head. The caffeine this late at night would play hell on his insomnia, and with another day of work before having Tony all weekend, he couldn’t afford not to sleep tonight.

“Alright.” Sanji sipped it, and set it aside.

As soon as his hands were free, Zoro pulled his head into his stomach, running his hands through the soft blond hair. It was silky and smooth between his calloused fingers. It felt good, and he hummed, low and rumbling through his chest.

It was a sound Sanji felt more than heard; he tilted his head up to look at his marimo, “I know, tiger. It’s okay.”

Limited by his knowledge of Sign and muted by the day, Zoro could only frown, brow pinched in the worried way that meant he was fretting over being a burden.

Shutting his laptop, the cook stood into his husband’s arms. He slipped his own around his neck, pecking his mouth softly. “Bed. Come cuddle with me.”

He led the two of them to their bedroom, turning off lights as he went.

“It’s okay.”

Zoro fell onto the bed first, heavy as ever, flopped into a seated position with his arms on his thighs and his back rounded. Sanji bent in to pull his shirt off, kissing him through it as it came free, and pushed him back onto the mattress with more kisses. Lithe and flexible, the cook was able to shift them around so that Zoro was in the middle of the bed, under his talented hands. Rubbing down his chest, his shoulders, his hips, his legs, Sanji relaxed each muscle group as he came to them.

“I’ve got you, tiger.” He murmured against his still muted lips.

Zoro only whined, frustrated by more than just his inability to form words. When Sanji laid down beside him, he was able to convince his arms to wrap around him, and he buried his nose in Sanji’s hair, shivering.

If there were tears, Zoro didn’t notice. His world was Sanji, and Sanji was the world. An oasis in an ocean of cold, hard, indifference.

He shifted sometime later, voice still rough, “I love you, baby.”


End file.
